Aggregate Scheduling with Statistical Service Guarantees

1IntroductionAggregate scheduling in Differentiated Service(Diff-Serv) architecture , where core routers perform flowsaggregation operations can efficiently solve the scalabili-ty problemincurred in Integrated Service(IntServ) ar-chitecture .Compared with deterministic Quality of Ser-vice( QoS) guarantees in IntServ,statistical service inDiffServ significantlyincreases the efficiency of networkusage by allowingstatistical multiplexing of traffic .Sta-tistical services significantly incre…     

Provisioning of Parameterized Quality of Service in 802.11e Based Wireless Mesh Networks

There has been a growing interest in the use of wireless mesh networks. Today’s wireless technology enables very high data rate up to hundreds of Megabits per second, which creates the high demand of supporting real-time multimedia applications over wireless mesh networks. Hence it is imperative to support quality of service (QoS) in wireless mesh networks. In this paper, we design a framework to provide parameterized QoS in 802.11e based wireless mesh networks. Our framework consists of admission control algorithms and scheduling algorithms, which aim at supporting constant bit-rate (CBR) traffic flows, as well as variable bit-rate (VBR) traffic flows. We first present deterministic end-to-end delay bounds for CBR traffic. We then prove that the delay of VBR traffic can be bounded if the traffic flow conforms to a leaky-bucket regulator. We further study different admission control algorithms for VBR traffic. Our simulation results show that, by taking advantage of statistical multiplexing, much more traffic flows can be admitted.     

A Network Calculus With Effective Bandwidth

This paper establishes a link between two principal tools for the analysis of network traffic, namely, effective bandwidth and network calculus. It is shown that a general version of effective bandwidth can be expressed within the framework of a probabilistic version of the network calculus, where both arrivals and service are specified in terms of probabilistic bounds. By formulating well-known effective bandwidth expressions in terms of probabilistic envelope functions, the developed network calculus can be applied to a wide range of traffic types, including traffic that has self-similar characteristics. As applications, probabilistic lower bounds are presented on the service given by three different scheduling algorithms: static priority, earliest deadline first, and generalized processor sharing. Numerical examples show the impact of specific traffic models and scheduling algorithms on the multiplexing gain in a network.     

Quality of service guarantees in virtual circuit switched networks

We review some recent results regarding the problem of providing deterministic quality of service guarantees in slot-based virtual circuit switched networks. The concept of a service curve is used to partially characterize the service that virtual circuit connections receive. We find that service curves provide a convenient framework for managing the allocation of performance guarantees. In particular, bounds on end-to-end performance measures can be simply obtained in terms of service curves and burstiness constraints on arriving traffic. Service curves can be allocated to the connections, and we consider scheduling algorithms that can support the allocated service curves. Such an approach provides the required degree of isolation between the connections in order to support performance guarantees, without precluding statistical multiplexing. Finally, we examine the problem of enforcing burstiness constraints in slot-based networks     

时间敏感网络流量调度算法研究综述

时间敏感网络（Time-sensitive Networking,TSN）是一种新型确定性网络,具有低时延、低抖动等特点,能够满足现代网络传输控制的要求。流量调度是TSN标准中关键技术之一,用于确保流量传输的服务质量。首先对时间敏感网络的发展背景、重要机制、应用场景进行阐述,着重研究5种时间敏感网络流量调度机制,包括基于时间的整形机制、基于信用值的整形机制、循环队列转发机制、帧抢占机制以及异步流量整形机制;然后,分析了流量调度算法的研究现状,归纳和总结了时间触发（Time-triggered,TT）流和事件触发（Event-triggered,ET）流的调度算法,分析了目前流量调度算法存在的问题;最后,指出了TSN流量调度算法的发展方向和趋势。     

Soft QoS provisioning using the token bank fair queuing scheduling algorithm

Future-generation wireless packet networks will support multimedia applications with diverse QoS requirements. Much of the research on scheduling algorithms has been focused on hard QoS provisioning of integrated services. Although these algorithms give hard delay bounds, their stringent requirements sacrifice the potential statistical multiplexing performance and flexibility of the packet-switched network. Furthermore, the complexities of the algorithms often make them impractical for wireless networks. There is a need to develop a packet scheduling scheme for wireless packet-switched networks that provides soft QoS guarantees for heterogeneous traffic, and is also simple to implement and manage. This article proposes token bank fair queuing (TBFQ), a soft scheduling algorithm that possesses these qualities. This algorithm is work-conserving and has a complexity of O(1). We focus on packet scheduling on a reservation-based TDMA/TDD wireless channel to service integrated real-time traffic. The TBFQ scheduling mechanism integrates the policing and servicing functions, and keeps track of the usage of each connection. We address the impact of TBFQ on mean packet delay, violation probability, and bandwidth utilization. We also demonstrate that due to its soft provisioning capabilities, the TBFQ performs rather well even when traffic conditions deviate from the established contracts.     

A Unified Architecture for the Design and Evaluation of Wireless Fair Queueing Algorithms

Fair queueing in the wireless domain poses significant challenges due to unique issues in the wireless channel such as location-dependent and bursty channel errors. In this paper, we present a wireless fair service model that captures the scheduling requirements of wireless scheduling algorithms, and present a unified wireless fair queueing architecture in which scheduling algorithms can be designed to achieve wireless fair service. We map seven recently proposed wireless fair scheduling algorithms to the unified architecture, and compare their properties through simulation and analysis. We conclude that some of these algorithms achieve the properties of wireless fair service including short-term and long-term fairness, short-term and long-term throughput bounds, and tight delay bounds for channel access.     

Deterministic delay bounds for VBR video in packet-switchingnetworks: fundamental limits and practical trade-offs

Compressed digital video is one of the most important traffic types in future integrated services networks. However, a network service that supports delay-sensitive video imposes many problems since compressed video sources are variable bit rate (VBR) with a high degree of burstiness. In this paper, we consider a network service that can provide deterministic guarantees on the minimum throughput and the maximum delay of VBR video traffic. A common belief is that due to the burstiness of VBR traffic, such a service will not be efficient and will necessarily result in low network utilization. We investigate the fundamental limits and trade-offs in providing deterministic performance guarantees to video and use a set of 10 to 30 min. long MPEG-compressed video traces for evaluation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we are able to show that, in many cases, a deterministic service can be provided to video traffic while maintaining a reasonable level of network utilization. We first consider an ideal network environment that employs the most accurate deterministic, time-invariant video traffic characterizations, the optimal earliest-deadline-first packet schedulers, and exact admission control conditions. The utilization achievable in this situation provides the fundamental limits of a deterministic service. We then investigate the utilization limits in a network environment that takes into account practical constraints, such as the need for simple and efficient policing mechanisms, packet scheduling algorithms, and admission control tests     

Providing deterministic packet delays and packet losses in multimedia wireless networks

‘Anytime, anywhere’ communication, information access and processing are much cherished in modern societies because of their ability to bring flexibility, freedom and increased efficiency to individuals and organizations. Wireless communications, by providing ubiquitous and tetherless network connectivity to mobile users, are therefore bound to play a major role in the advancement of our society. Although initial proposals and implementations of wireless communications are generally focused on near‐term voice and electronic messaging applications, it is recognized that future wireless communications will have to evolve towards supporting a wider range of applications, including voice, video, data, images and connections to wired networks. This implies that future wireless networks must provide quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantees to various multimedia applications in a wireless environment. Typical traffic in multimedia applications can be classified as either Constant‐Bit‐Rate (CBR) traffic or Variable‐Bit‐Rate (VBR) traffic. In particular, scheduling the transmission of VBR multimedia traffic streams in a wireless environment is very challenging and is still an open problem. In general, there are two ways to guarantee the QoS of VBR multimedia streams, either deterministically or statistically. In particular, most connection admission control (CAC) algorithms and medium access control (MAC) protocols that have been proposed for multimedia wireless networks only provide statistical, or soft, QoS guarantees. In this paper, we consider deterministic QoS guarantees in multimedia wireless networks. We propose a method for constructing a packet‐dropping mechanism that is based on a mathematical framework that determines how many packets can be dropped while the required QoS can still be preserved. This is achieved by employing: (1) An accurate traffic characterization of the VBR multimedia traffic streams; (2) A traffic regulator that can provide bounded packet loss and (3) A traffic scheduler that can provide bounded packet delay. The combination of traffic characterization, regulation and scheduling can provide bounded loss and delay deterministically. This is a distinction from traditional deterministic QoS schemes in which a 0% packet loss are always assumed with deterministically bounding the delay. We performed a set of performance evaluation experiments. The results will demonstrate that our proposed QoS guarantee schemes can significantly support more connections than a system, which does not allow any loss, at the same required QoS. Moreover, from our evaluation experiments, we found that the proposed algorithms are able to out‐perform scheduling algorithms adopted in state‐of‐the‐art wireless MAC protocols, for example Mobile Access Scheme Based on Contention and Reservation for ATM (MASCARA) when the worst‐case traffic is being considered. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creating templates to achieve low delay in multi-carrier frame-based wireless data systems

We consider the problem of creating template-based schedules for multi-carrier frame-based wireless data systems. A template consists of an assignment of carriers to users over a fixed set of time slots. This schedule can then be repeated multiple times. Repeated template schedules require no continuous feedback of information (such as channel conditions), thereby relieving the signaling overhead. This setup is suitable for applications such as Wimax where users are typically static. Our aim is to assign carriers to users in such a way that the service per user is as smooth as possible. This in turn ensures that the users experience low delay. A number of elegant template scheduling algorithms exist for the single-carrier case. However, the case of multi-carrier systems where the channel rates can be different on different carriers has received much less attention. We present a general framework for studying the delay performance of a multi-carrier template. We then describe a number of deterministic and randomized scheduling algorithms for template creation and study their delay performance via analysis and simulation. We also show that the delay bounds can sometimes be improved by randomly shifting the schedule on each carrier and by scheduling in a hierarchical manner.     

Deterministic loss ratio quality of service guarantees for highspeed networks

Current research for the provision of deterministic quality of service guarantees in both IP networks and high speed networks involve only bounded delay guarantees, In this letter, loss ratio is considered. We propose constraints on the service function in order to provide not only deterministic bounded loss ratio under a given buffer capacity but also bounded delay. Network operation can be easily managed by existing service-function-based scheduling algorithms     

A study of simple usage‐based charging schemes for broadband networks

Operators of multi‐service networks require simple charging schemes with which they can fairly recover costs from their users and effectively allocate network resources. This paper studies an approach for computing such charges from simple measurements (time and volume), and relating these to bounds of the effective bandwidth. To achieve economic efficiency, it is necessary that usage‐based charging schemes capture the relative amount of resources used by connections. Based on this criteria, we evaluate our approach for real traffic consisting of Internet Wide Area Network traces and MPEG‐1 compressed video. Its incentive compatibility is shown with an example involving deterministic multiplexing, and the effect of pricing on a network's equilibrium is investigated for deterministic and statistical multiplexing. Finally, we investigate the incentives for traffic shaping provided by the approach. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Real-time mixed-traffic wireless networks

In this paper we introduce a new protocol, prioritized carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance, for real-time wireless local area networking. Wireless networks increasingly will be called upon to carry mixed traffic, some portion of which will be devoted to real-time control and monitoring. Our protocol, based upon the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard, mixes real-time traffic with standard multimedia data in a way which assures loop stability. Scheduling the real-time traffic is the primary issue considered. Under our framework, we propose and validate several new algorithms for dynamically scheduling the traffic of wireless networked control systems: constant penalty, estimated error order and lag first-order schemes. All algorithms are compared via simulation and the results show that dynamic scheduling algorithms achieve better system performance on average than static scheduling algorithms like fixed-order polling. The results of a real experiment involving two dryer plants and three IEEE 802.11 nodes are reported with static scheduling employed as it lower bounds the closed-loop behavior     

End-to-end delay bounds for traffic aggregates under guaranteed-rate scheduling algorithms

This paper evaluates, via both analysis and simulation, the end-to-end (e2e) delay performance of aggregate scheduling with guaranteed-rate (GR) algorithms. Deterministic e2e delay bounds for a single aggregation are derived under the assumption that all incoming flows at an aggregator conform to the token bucket model. An aggregator can use any of three types of GR scheduling algorithms: stand-alone GR, two-level hierarchical GR, and rate-controlled two-level hierarchical GR. E2e delay bounds are also derived for the case of multiple aggregations within an aggregation region when aggregators use the rate-controlled two-level hierarchical GR. By using the GR scheduling algorithms for traffic aggregates, we show not only the existence of delay bounds for each flow, but also the fact that, under certain conditions (e.g., when the aggregate traverses a long path after the aggregation point), the bounds are smaller than that of per-flow scheduling. We then compare the analytic delay bounds numerically and conduct in-depth simulation to: 1) confirm the analytic results and 2) compare the e2e delays of aggregate and per-flow scheduling. The simulation results have shown that aggregate scheduling is very robust and can exploit statistical multiplexing gains. It performs better than per-flow scheduling in most of the simulation scenarios we considered. Overall, aggregate scheduling is shown theoretically to provide bounded e2e delays and practically to provide excellent e2e delay performance. Moreover, it incurs lower scheduling and state-maintenance overheads at routers than per-flow scheduling. All of these salient features make aggregate scheduling very attractive for use in Internet core networks.     

A cell switching WDM broadcast LAN with bandwidth guarantee andfair access

This paper presents the design of a cell-switching wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) local area network (LAN), which constitutes a key component of a next-generation internet (NGI) consortium project recently funded by DARPA. An important goal of the NGI project is to support bandwidth-on-demand services with quality-of-service (QOS) guarantee over WDM networks. As a first step toward this goal, we have developed several fast scheduling algorithms for flexible bandwidth reservations and fair sharing of unreserved bandwidth in a WDM broadcast network with fast-tunable transceivers. Unlike circuit-based bandwidth reservation schemes that impose a fixed schedule precomputed on setup, our scheme deals with bursty traffic by allocating network resources dynamically using very efficient algorithms. Our algorithms are based on a new concept of computing maximal weighted matchings, which is a generalization of maximal matchings on unweighted graphs. We prove that our algorithms can support total reserved bandwidth of up to 50% of the network capacity, and in that case constant delay bounds are also established. Simulations show that our algorithms can in practice support much higher reserved bandwidth-up to 90% of network capacity, and with much better delay bounds, even for burst traffic. In addition to the bandwidth guarantee, the unreserved bandwidth can be shared fairly among the users using our fair access algorithms with case to 100% network utilization in simulations     

Scheduling and bandwidth allocation for the distribution of archived video in VOD systems

Providing costeffective videoondemand (VOD) services necessitates reducing the required bandwidth for transporting video over highspeed networks. In this paper, we investigate efficient schemes for transporting archived MPEGcoded video over a VOD distribution network. A video stream is characterized by a timevarying traffic envelope, which provides an upper bound on the bit rate. Using such envelopes, we show that video streams can be scheduled for transmission over the network such that the perstream allocated bandwidth is significantly less than the source peak rate. In a previous work [13], we investigated stream scheduling and bandwidth allocation using global traffic envelopes and homogeneous streams. In this paper, we generalize the scheduling scheme in [13] to include the heterogeneous case. We then investigate the allocation problem under windowbased traffic envelopes, which provide tight bounds on the bit rate. Using such envelopes, we introduce three streamscheduling schemes for multiplexing video connections at a server. The performance of these schemes is evaluated under static and dynamic scenarios. Our results indicate a significant reduction in the perstream allocated bandwidth when stream scheduling is used. While this reduction is obtained through statistical multiplexing, the transported streams are guaranteed stringent, deterministic quality of service (i.e., zero loss rate and small, bounded delay). In contrast to video smoothing, our approach requires virtually no buffer at the settop box since frames are delivered at their playback rate.     

Efficient Traffic Scheduling for Real Time VBR MPEG Video Transmission Over DOCSIS-Based HFC Networks

Data-over-cable service interface specifications (DOCSIS), the de facto standard in the cable industry, defines a scheduling service called real-time polling service (rtPS) to provision quality of service (QoS) transmission of real-time variable bit rate (VBR) videos. However, the rtPS service intrinsically has high latency, which makes it not applicable to real-time traffic transport. In this paper, we present a novel traffic scheduling algorithm for hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks based on DOCSIS that aims to provide QoS for real-time VBR video transmissions. The novel characteristics of this algorithm, as compared to those described in published literatures, include 1) it predicts the bandwidth requirements for future traffic using a novel traffic predictor designed to provide simple yet accurate online prediction; and 2) it takes the attributes of physical (PHY) layer, media access control (MAC) layer and application layer into consideration. In addition, the proposed traffic scheduling algorithm is completely compatible with the DOCSIS specification and does not require any protocol changes. We analyze the performance of the proposed traffic predictor and traffic scheduling algorithm using real-life MPEG video traces. Simulation results indicate that 1) the proposed traffic predictor significantly outperforms previously published techniques with respect to the prediction error and 2) Compared with several existing scheduling algorithms, the proposed traffic scheduling algorithm surpasses other mechanisms in terms of channel utilization, buffer usage, packet delay, and packet loss rate.     

Wavelength division multiplexing-based video-on-demand systems

Serving video-on-demand (VOD) traffic via isochronous transmission service is highly desirable because of the characteristics of VOD traffic. This paper proposes a mechanism to transfer VOD traffic over wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks by employing isochronous transmission service. Based on the proposed mechanism, the problem of scheduling isochronous and asynchronous traffic for single-star WDM networks with multiple receivers and transmitters is investigated. The lower bounds on the total switching duration and the number of switching modes for the isochronous and asynchronous traffic scheduling problem are derived. An optimal scheduling algorithm is presented for the cases where only asynchronous traffic exists; and a heuristic algorithm is also proposed for the cases where both the isochronous and asynchronous traffic coexist in the WDM networks. Simulation results indicate that the average switching duration and the average number of switching modes obtained by the proposed algorithm are close to the lower bounds, which implies that the proposed scheduling algorithm is effective     

Resource allocation for statistical quality of service provision in buffered crossbar switches

The buffered crossbar switch is a promising switching architecture that plays a crucial role for providing quality of service (QoS) in computer networks. Sufficient amount of resources—bandwidth and buffer space—must be allocated in buffered crossbar switches for QoS provision. Resource allocation based on deterministic QoS objectives might be too conservative in practical network operations. To improve resource utilization in buffered crossbar switches, we study the problem of resource allocation for statistical QoS provision in this paper. First, we develop a model and techniques for analyzing the probabilistic delay performance of buffered crossbar switches, which is described by the delay upper bound with a prescribed violation probability. Then, we determine the required amounts of bandwidth and buffer space to achieve the probabilistic delay objectives for different traffic classes in buffered crossbar switches. In our analysis, we apply the effective arrival envelope to specify traffic load in a statistical manner and characterize switch service capacity by using the service curve technique. Instead of just focusing on one specific type of scheduler, the model and techniques developed in this paper are very flexible and can be used for analyzing buffered crossbar switches with a wide variety of scheduling algorithms. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive scheduling mechanism for IPTV over WiMAX IEEE 802.16j networks

A WiMAX technology is a very promising Broadband Wireless Access technology that is able to transmit different service types. This latter can have different constraints such as traffic rate, maximum latency, and tolerated jitter. The IEEE 802.16 Medium Access Control specifies five types of QoS classes: UGS, rtPS, ertPS, nrtPS, and BE. However, the IEEE 802.16 standard does not specify the scheduling algorithm to be used. Operators have the choice among many existing scheduling techniques. Also, they can propose their own scheduling algorithms. In this paper, we propose a scheduling strategy (Adaptive Weighted Round Robin, AWRR) for various Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services traffic over 802.16j networks. Our scheme adapts dynamically the scheduler operation to according queue load and quality of service constraints. In particular, the proposed mechanism gives more priority to high definition television and standard definition television traffic by using two schedulers. The proposed scheduling algorithm has been simulated using the QualNet network simulator. The experimental results show that our scheduler schemes AWRR have a better performance than the traditional scheduling techniques for rtPS traffic, which allows ensuring QoS requirements for IPTV application. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.